Operation: Knife
by Jaxsor
Summary: The story of Jack Haverson and his unit, Gatecrasher, on what seems to be a fast and quick raid on an Insurrectionist base. (Story based on fanon timeline of Mass Effect Universe forums.)


(Author's note: This story is based in a fanon timeline of Mass Effect, from a Mass Effect RP site known as Mass Effect Universe. This is a story that focuses on my character, Service Chief Jack Haverson, during a civil war within the Systems Alliance. If you desire to know the context, I would recommend going to the site and reading the events of the Alliance Civil War. And if you so desire, maybe you could even join our little roleplaying community. Without further ado, here is my story.)

The descent was always the hard part of this journey, no exceptions. No matter how many times Jack Haverson had dropped, he would never be able to fully prepare for that tug in his gut. He had gotten better at fighting through the nausea over the years, but it was never going to go away.

As they descended, the officer they had come in with spoke up. "Alright, Gatecrasher, listen up! We're headed down here to collect tactical data from an Insurrectionist outpost. This data contains critical information on troop counts and deployments in this area. If we can grab this info, we have a chance to know all their moves before they make them. This is too important to fail. I want this done smooth and by the numbers."

Haverson rolled his eyes at the last sentence. No battle plan survived first contact with the enemy. Anyone who believed otherwise was either inexperienced or just that dense. Haverson was willing to go with the former, since the officer, a man known as Staff Lieutenant Zhang, didn't seem to be that much older than Haverson himself. This was the consequence of being passed from officer to officer: not all of them were as good as Haverson could hope for all the time. But Haverson figured he could work with this. This officer couldn't be that bad, even if he was inexperienced.

He heard Crasher-5 and Crasher-3 in conversation. Crasher-5 told Crasher-3, "Relax, we can pull this off. This isn't gonna be much different from a normal op."

Crasher-3 responded, "Still, any op can go bad." She was always like this: nervous, usually unwilling to come out of her shell. Considering what Haverson knew of her background, he couldn't blame her.

Crasher-5 answered, "Look, just keep your eyes downrange, and your finger on the trigger. Treat this like any other op."

"That's exactly what I'm doing."

Crasher-7 looked to Haverson, "Crasher-1, you ready?"

Haverson gave a thumbs up gesture, "Ready as I'll ever be, Crasher-7." Crasher-7 had been there for the original Operation: Gatecrasher and survived. Haverson knew this man was good at his job, if a little ruthless. He hoped he could curb that before it got out of hand.

The pilot called from the cockpit, "Wrap it up, we're approaching the LZ now."

The shuttle reached the ground, and the Lieutenant told them in a matter-of-fact tone, "Alright, move it, Gatecrasher. I want us in there yesterday." As they moved out, they were greeted by a snowy area, with about 100 meters to the base. The place had been easy to sneak up to, but the snow might slow them down if they encountered hostiles on the perimeter.

Gatecrasher kept a fairly tight formation. Crasher-5 took point, with Crasher-6 close behind. The others were dispersed behind them, Haverson covering the Lieutenant. They trudged through the snow, expecting some sort of hostile contact. No hostiles showed their faces.

Crasher-4 muttered to himself, "Place is a ghost town."

The Lieutenant quickly jumped on that, "Cut the chatter, Crasher-4."

Haverson kept his eyes open, trying to find any Insurrectionist guards. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He kept trudging forward, and eventually spotted the entrance. There were no perimeter guards. Haverson told the others, "I think we caught them changing shifts. This is our perfect chance!"

The Lieutenant was quick to respond, once more, "Good! Crasher-1, I want you to run a bypass on that door. Crasher-5, Crasher-6, cover him. We'll be right with you."

Haverson took the risk, moving as quickly as he could to cover behind the side of the door. He found a console, with a very obvious sign that the place was locked. It was exactly what Haverson was looking for. The thing asked him for a password, but he wasn't going to try that. Instead, he used his omni-tool to try to break the encryption on the console. The encryption was certainly no joke, but Haverson was able to break it with relative ease.

Luckily, his intrusion was not detected, and he was in. The controls were simple, and it was just a few simple button presses before the door was unlocked. He called to the others, "Door's open, sir. We can breach on your go."

The other Crashers rallied on the door with the trio that had just broken through its security. The Lieutenant nodded to Haverson, "We can go through on your go. Let's go in quietly. I want us to have the element of surprise." Haverson knew, inexperienced as the LT might be, that he wasn't tactically inept. After all, he had to get the job done somehow. Haverson nodded, concurring with that plan. He figured there wasn't anything more sensible they could do here. He opened up the door, motioning everyone to move in.

As they entered into the corridor, they kept their guns raised, once again letting Crasher-5 and 6 take point. And still, no contacts. Haverson couldn't help but feel unnerved by that, knowing full well what had happened the last time it had seemed all quiet. Sure, they were changing the guard now, but someone could arrive any minute now.

The corridors kept winding on, and the squad just followed the nav point to where it was assumed the data would be. Eventually, they came across what looked like a barracks. The Lieutenant ordered them, "Someone check out the barracks. Could be where our resistance is. I want to know just how off guard we've caught them."

Crasher-5 opened the door to the barracks, and they found about five guards that were still getting their kits on. Haverson heard Crasher-5 chuckle a bit. Haverson signaled, and then he, along with Crasher-5 and 6, barged in with their guns raised.

Haverson spoke tersely to them, "Get down on the goddamn ground and surrender. We're only gonna ask you once."

One of the guards responded, "And just why the hell should we listen to you? We can call in, and the other guards will storm the place and kill you all!"

Haverson cocked his head, "And just how many more guards are there?" As he asked the question, the rest of Gatecrasher had entered the barracks as well.

The guard gulped and decided to tell them, "There's about ten more. They're...guarding the data. Some of them, anyway. The others are guarding comms."

Haverson acknowledged the answer, "Thank you."

Suddenly, Crasher-7 spoke up, "Yeah, thank you." Then he opened fire into the unarmed guards, causing the surrounding barracks to be splattered with the red spray from the carnage.

Haverson turned to Crasher-7 in shock, "They were unarmed prisoners!"

Crasher-7 looked at Haverson almost incredulously, "You know what happened the last time we had a prisoner. He went and called for backup. I'm making sure they don't get the chance."

Haverson angrily fired back, "What you pulled was cold-blooded murder. Acts like that are part of the reason these people hate us in the first place. Your 'no holds barred' attitude is only gonna get people killed, Irvin!"

Irvin now looked somewhat shocked himself. He didn't seem to have been expecting Haverson to get angry over this. He simply said, "I'm sorry."

Haverson relented just a bit, "Damn right you are. Now let's get moving. We only have so much time before the whole damn place closes in on us."

They moved out of the barracks in the same formation, toward their objective. Once they were close enough, they made out what looked like a command center at the nav point. There were five guards there, just lying in wait. Luckily, they didn't seem to have any idea that Gatecrasher was present. Haverson said to the Lieutenant, "Sir, there's no way around. We're gonna have to go through. Might as well get the drop on them first."

"Good thinking, Crasher-1." He then addressed the rest, "Alright, Gatecrasher, we take them here and now. Fire on my mark."

Everyone was primed and ready to fire. Haverson signaled them to wait for the LT's call. They all were tensed up, and Crasher-7 asked, "What are we waiting for."

In one fateful moment, the command came, "Now!"

Crasher-5 was the first to react, leveling her shotgun and firing on a target. However, the pound of the shotgun was never heard: her shotgun seemed to have jammed, much to her chagrin. She tried to clear it, but it would take her too long to actually get back in the fight if she wanted to use it.

Crasher-7 tried to cover her while she cleared the jam. His shot hit a guard's helmet, causing said guard to stagger. Crasher-4 took the opportunity to try to go for the finisher. The shot was yet another graze on the helmet, but it was sufficient to cause the guard to fall over, probably unconscious.

The LT cursed as the guards started to break for whatever cover they could find, focusing fire on one of them with his pistol. His shots broke right through the guard's shields. As the guard turned to face the LT, he landed a shot that went right through the exposed area of the guard's head, killing the poor bastard in an instant. The LT might be inexperienced as a commander, but he certainly was no pushover in combat.

Crasher-9 was the furthest back, wielding his M99 Saber. He attempted to fire a shot at a third guard who was nearly in cover. The shot was damn near perfect, piercing right through the guard's head. The body dropped right onto the wall and slumped over, leaving a splatter of red.

One tried to move in to engage with a shotgun and kill Crasher-5. Crasher-6 was having none of that, and fired his rifle at the incoming hostile. However, the hostile's shield seemed to simply refuse to break, only taking some minor hits.

The hostile fired his shotgun at Crasher-5 just as planned, since she was closest. However, his blast went very, very wide. He almost seemed to stop in shock before Haverson took the opportunity to overload his shields so Crasher-8 could finish him off. The effects were visceral: the EMP blast went right through the guard's shields and causing said guard to stagger and end up kneeling.

Crasher-8 took the opportunity to fire her rifle to finish the staggering guard off. Unfortunately, her rifle was just as cooperative as Crasher-5's shotgun. She cursed and drew her sidearm to compensate.

Crasher-3 leveled her own pistol to try to finish the job. All it took was two shots to the guard's chest to finish the job, sending the body sprawling.

The LT breathed a sigh of relief, then told the others, "Alright, get in there and get that data. We can't fail now."

Haverson was happy to oblige. He was the first into the room, and saw quite a few terminals scattered about. He counted four exactly. He couldn't be sure which ones held the data they were looking for, so he decided he would hack them all.

He approached the first one cautiously, hoping to detect no traps. Luckily, there were none. All there was was a firewall on the computer to prevent intrusions. A valiant effort, but it would soon prove to be no match for Haverson's hacking skills. The firewalls came down, and he was able to grab all the data and sever the connection without flaw. The second was just as simple, the firewalls crumbling just as easily.

However, the confidence he was building up would prove to be his undoing on the third one. He took his time, taking it slow, but that prevented him from grabbing all the data. He still managed to get most of it, but had to sever the connection quickly to stop the alarm from triggering.

He vowed to do better on the next one. He was a lot more careful this time, careful to mind how much time he took. He was able to grab all of the data like he had for the first and second, and so he reported in, "I was able to grab most of the data. What we've got should be enough to give us quite the edge strategically."

Suddenly, gunfire broke out in the corridor. He thought he saw, through the doorway, the LT firing his pistol at something. The LT said over the comm, "We've got four of them out here now. Took one of them. We need to take them out, then head for evac."

"Understood, sir. We're coming out to help now."

As soon as he stepped out behind Crasher-5 and 6, he saw four enemies that were now behind cover. One tried to take the opportunity to fire at Crasher-5. However, his shot went badly wide.

Crasher-5 saw this as her opportunity to make a Charge into the enemy. She seemed to simply phase into the enemy, passing through every object in her way. The impact, however, was less than Haverson had hoped for; she had barely even scratched the one that had just fired at her, and now she was exposed to all four of them. In a desperate attempt to stave them off, she used a Nova blast to knock them down.

The one that had targeted her was sent sprawling, and a crack was heard upon the impact against the wall. Two more were knocked right on their asses, exposed to the entirety of Gatecrasher's combined firepower. The last stumbled back a bit, but was able to regain his footing to begin retreating, firing his SMG at Crasher-5. His aim was surprisingly accurate, breaking Crasher-5's shields in an instant and landing far too many bullets in her head, causing her to drop to the floor in a spray of red.

Crasher-3 shouted in an almost uncharacteristic anguish, "Diana, no!" She was about to rush forward, but Crasher-7 held her back.

"Forget her, she's gone!"

"I'm not leaving her!"

"She's dead, you get it? Dead! There's nothing we can do!"

Crasher-3 seemed just about ready to start sobbing, but the LT yelled back at them, "Someone get a fucking charge in there!"

Crasher-8 was the first to oblige, tossing a grenade right at the two guards still trying to scramble to their feet. The grenade was only so effective, but it killed one of the two guards, and wounded the other. Crasher-5's killer had seen quite enough, and was dashing around the corner before anyone could react. As the other got up to try to fight back, Haverson fired his pistol. The first shot caught the guard in the chest. He fired again, and this time it was a clean headshot, killing the guard instantly.

The guard that had killed the crazy biotic was panicking now, frantically thinking of a plan to get away. He was an experienced soldier, but having to kill someone up close like that was unsettling no matter how it went down. If he made it out of this, he'd always be haunted by her eyes upon realizing she was going to die, or at least what he'd seen through her helmet's visor.

He had only one plan: head back to comms and lock himself in. He could at least try to call for backup that way. Maybe the backup would even get there in time to save him. _Shit, shit, shit_. He was frantically turning each corner until he actually found the door. _Damn, I haven't been so happy to see a comm room in my damned life_. He opened the door, then made sure to lock it behind him, then attempted desperately to send out a distress call, "This is Trident-5. Our base is under attack. The Alliance has stolen critical data and has killed all of the guards stationed alongside me. I say again, I'm the last one left. They are likely closing on my position as we speak. If anyone's out there, please respond."

Fortunately, a voice answered his call, "Trident Five, this is Phoenix Lead, solid copy. We'll take it from here, trooper."

Trident-5 heaved a heavy sigh of relief. Phoenix themselves we're going to be rescuing him. He couldn't really ask for better backup. Unfortunately, he heard the door open, and turned around to see a very pissed off Alliance tech in the doorway. The tech raised his pistol, and Trident-5 tried to draw his SMG in time to shoot first. He was too late. The last thing he remembered was the sound of the tech firing, and then numbness, like something had just struck into his head, and then everything fading away.

Haverson growled at the corpse, "That was for Crasher-5, you son of a bitch." Then he realized that the channel was still open, and heard what sounded like a shuttle coming in. _Great._ He realized that the channel was probably to the reinforcements. He supposed he could try talking to whoever it was, see who they were dealing with. He decided to say to whoever was on the other end, "All your friends here are dead. And we're leaving, whether you like it or not."

"One thing I've always liked about the Alliance; you're idealists. Run, Hero. You won't get far."

Haverson's blood ran cold when he heard that voice. _Boss._ He cursed under his breath, then killed the channel. His next move was to tell the LT, "Sir, we're about to have company! We need to get the hell out of here now."

The LT inquired, "And just who could it be that we need to start running?"

Haverson answered almost frantically, "We're dealing with goddamn Phoenix here! And who the hell knows how many they've got backing them up? This is way beyond our capacity, sir!"

The LT paused, probably processing it the same way Haverson was. "You're right, we need to-oh shit, one's already here!"

Haverson heard that one second, then the pounding of gunfire in the next.

Haverson rushed in to see a corridor filled with bullets and Gatecrasher in fairly bad shape. He saw Crasher-4 and Crasher-7, and they looked lightly wounded. Crasher-4 was hit in the arm, which brought back unpleasant memories of his wounds in Operation Gatecrasher. Unfortunately, Crasher-7 would not be escorting him anywhere, as he had a similar wound on his leg.

The worst sight of all only graced his vision when he turned to face the shooter, however. He saw both Crasher-6 lying on his back in a pool of his own blood, and Crasher-3 practically bawling her eyes out on top of Crasher-6's corpse. Haverson cursed, but then heard something ever so slightly comforting, the shooter shouting, "Fuck!" His gun was noticeably deformed, and he was desperately trying get it to work again.

Since he had not yet taken cover, the LT gave a decisive order, "Take that bastard down!" Everyone focused fire on the single target, determined to mop him up before the rest arrived. All it took was the LT and Haverson firing together to kill the man, sending him sprawling under the combined impact of the LT's Praetor and Haverson's Phalanx.

Unfortunately, that was when the rest of Phoenix showed up, the three accompanied by two more of those bastards in black armor. It was only a moment before they went for cover, the two in black armor taking point and focusing fire on the LT. One of them was able to land a deadly accurate shot that punctured the LT's heart, killing him instantly. The other shifted focus to the nearest target, Crasher-4. The shots were just as accurate as the shots that killed the LT, and Crasher-4 never stood any chance. Haverson cursed loudly, and yelled at the others, "The LT is down! Someone get a goddamn grenade in there!"

Crasher-7 was the first to oblige, pulling a grenade off of his belt. Unfortunately, after he primed it, the enemy was quick to notice. The grenade only ended up doing light damage to their shields. Haverson cursed, trying to gun down one as they fell back. Luckily, he was able to take the LT's killer down before all the gunfire focused on him, attempting to suppress him. _Well, it's working._ Haverson cursed up a storm, remembering the last time he had encountered the ones in black armor. They had been hilariously incompetent that time. _Why couldn't they just stay that way?_

Suddenly, Haverson heard gunshots coming from behind. _Crasher-9._ The shots were incredibly accurate, piercing through the other trooper's helmet and killing her damn close to instantly.

Haverson was about to cheer, when suddenly there was more gunfire. It had clearly come from their back lines. Haverson guessed that it was Boss, since he could see Doc and Stringbean. Crasher-9 was hit on his helmet, but it seemed to be just a graze, luckily. Haverson sighed and gave the order, "We have to get the hell out of here!"

They chose a moment when the fire died down to break cover and retreat, firing at Phoenix as they left. Phoenix did not seem intent on letting them get away. As they were breaking cover, Boss zeroed in on Haverson. _Oh shit._ Suddenly, Crasher-2 got in the way, taking the bullets intended for his superior. Haverson shouted, "No!" But he knew there was no other option that to keep running. As Crasher-3 finally got herself together and broke cover, she was riddled with bullets. Stringbean, no doubt. As Crasher-7 broke cover, the pounding blast of a shotgun could be heard, and Crasher-7 let out a slight cry of pain. The spread had been wide enough that Crasher-7 had only taken a bit of the blast in the arm, but he was slightly staggering now, even if he could still run.

They didn't stop to look back at all. The quartet was in full retreat now. The only one unwounded was Haverson, and time would tell if that remained the same. As they exited the building, they heard the sound of an engine. _Oh crap, it's the damn gunship._ His worst fears were confirmed when he heard the sound of the LMARC firing. Luckily, it wasn't able to break anyone's shields, since they were quick about running back inside to safety.

Crasher-9 stated, "We can't get out that way."

Crasher-7 weakly added, "Looks like they cut off our only escape route."

Crasher-4 posed the question on everyone's minds, "So, how do we get out of this one?"

Haverson thought for a bit, then had a thought. "This is gonna be insanely risky, but I need you guys to act as bait so I can sabotage that thing's engines. If this works right, it'll bring that SOB right out of the sky."

Crasher-4 was shocked at the notion, "I'm not throwing my life away for some crazy, fucked up plan like this! I have a wife, a daughter!"

Crasher-9 stated logically, "Do you have a better suggestion?" The silence was his answer.

Haverson nodded, then said to them, "Go now. Draw its attention away from this entrance."

They were quick to oblige, and set out running. They had made it some distance before the gunship noticed them again.

Perhaps the pilots hadn't expected them to be foolish enough to try something so stupid. Either way, they began firing, their attention diverted to killing these stragglers. Their efforts were extremely effective, easily killing all three of the soldiers as they ran. However, they realized that one was unaccounted for.

Before they could turn their attention to that problem, Haverson made his move. He was quickly able to aim his omni-tool for the engines, and the Sabotage was able to completely shut down the engines. With no way to maneuver, the gunship crashed with a thud and explosion to the surface. _No way they could have survived that._ With that out of the way, Haverson knew what he had to do. He had to escape with the data. No other option. He ran as fast as he could, hoping to avoid contact with Phoenix.

He had managed to get back to the shuttle he had come in on, when suddenly Phoenix approached. He had his Phalanx drawn on them, but he had a feeling that it was a useless gesture.

Boss levelled her weapon at Haverson, a scowl evident even through the visor of her helmet, "Drop your weapon, trooper. No one else has to die, today." The surviving members of Phoenix fanned out to either side, working to surround the lone marine. None showed any sign of recognition.

Haverson removed his helmet, and spoke up, "Remember me? I sure as hell remember you. I saw you in Vancouver, right after Jay died. I remember that full well. I survived that mess. I survived. And then when I faced you and your troops down at Bogatyr, I survived that too. I survived all of that. And now, I've survived this. I lost people in some of those battles. I lost my whole damn unit in Vancouver. I lost Jay in Vancouver. And now I lost all of my unit here too. And you expect me to lay down my weapon and make everything they died for meaningless? Not a chance. I'd rather go down fighting for them than disgrace that. And if that means I have to join them six feet under, so be it!" With that, he leveled his weapon directly at Boss.

He could have sworn that he saw Boss' face light up in a mix of surprise and anger upon realizing how far back their encounters went, but she didn't say anything. She simply nodded to the other two, and they opened fire. Haverson was about to panic as his shields started dropping, tried to fall back...until he saw what looked like someone decloaking behind Doc. The mysterious person spoke up snarkily, "On your six!" He then proceeded to throw a punch that seemed unnaturally strong. Doc was caught completely unaware, and took the full force of the blow, flying right into Stringbean and temporarily crushing her under his weight. He was very clearly out after a hit like that, though probably not dead. It didn't matter: Haverson knew this was his prime opportunity to run. And run he did, only looking back a few times to gauge how much time he had.

Boss was already backing up, firing her Carnifex at the mysterious new arrival. As he ran at her, she managed to land a good shot to his gut, giving her time to motion to Stringbean to get the hell out of there. The man took a step back, and Stringbean took the moment to grab Doc and started carrying him. The mystery man was about to take a shot at Stringbean with what looked like a Talon pistol, but Boss was having none of that, firing her Carnifex at the man's arm. The shot was enough to disarm him, but there was no blood at the point of impact. Instead, the impact seemed to instead have a metallic ping. _A cyborg?_

Phoenix was very clearly going to make it past the cyborg now, and so his attention seemed to shift from them...to Haverson. _Why couldn't he just leave well enough alone?_ The bastard was closing in too damn fast, and Haverson knew he had to make sure his shields stayed down. He couldn't sight in well enough to land any substantial hits, but was at least able to land a grazing shot to keep those shields down. _Good enough._

The cyborg finally closed the distance right as Haverson had reached the area just in front of the shuttle. Haverson managed to dodge most of the blow, but he felt it hit his arm ever so slightly. It stung, but was no big deal in the end. He knew what he had to do: Overload his cybernetics while his shields were still down and end this fight. It worked, but not as well as Haverson had hoped. In that moment, he made a dive for the shuttle, making it in just as the cyborg was getting up again. Unfortunately, he also saw Insurrectionist shuttles inbound, probably Phoenix's backup. He yelled at the pilot, "Punch it!" The cyborg made a dive to delay the shuttle, but he wasn't fast enough. The shuttle door closed and they took off, making their escape back to HQ.

On the way back, Haverson was about to address Crasher-4, Crasher-7, and Crasher-9, "Good wo-" Then it hit him for real. They were gone. He'd never see them again. They had died because he had made the call that had gotten them killed. He pounded the wall angrily, hating himself for letting them die like that. It was all his fault.

As they finally got back home, Haverson reported, trying to hide his anguish, "We managed to recover the data. _I_ managed to recover the data. Everyone else is...KIA." After the fellow soldiers that greeted him heard that, they let him have his space. They could probably tell he was in a ton of emotional pain after a mission like that.

Haverson didn't stop for anything, just made a beeline for somewhere silent, somewhere to think. He came to the living quarters, realizing they would have to do. As soon as he made it there, he was barely holding back tears. Gatecrasher was all but wiped out now. The people he had put so much faith in were gone. Just like his unit in Vancouver. Just like Jay. Just like everyone else that had been lost to this godforsaken war.

Haverson desperately was looking for any sort of silver lining, anything at all that could make him believe that all this loss might have been worth something. He pulled up the data on his omni-tool, wanting to make sure it was everything he had hoped it would be. What he found was tactical data on the Attican Insurrection forces in this sector, everything the Alliance would ever need to stage an effective attack to finally end this battle. It would only end this one battle, but Haverson could at least take pride in that it would lead to an Alliance victory, and hopefully be another step toward ending the whole damned thing. That, hopefully, would be worth all the sacrifice and bloodshed that took place. Haverson still felt fairly dejected and saddened, but at least he had a glimmer of hope. And with that glimmer of hope, he was able to get up and head in for debriefing.


End file.
